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Monday, September 10, 2012

Henry, St. James, and...

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

@#$%

@#$%

Preface.

I was born again again last October 2011
during a week with Eugene and covenant brothers in Montana.

Agreeing with the
saint who said "a life lived for Jesus speaks louder than any verbal
testimony," several convictions related to the rebirth demand enfleshment
and have become a constant prayer since then as I wanna look up, stand up,
speak up, and act up for Him, as Calvinists used to say, to show the signs of
my salvation (i.e., to prove I'm really related to Him more than less):

1. John 17 -
There is nothing more ugly and dishonest to true discipleship than
pastors/people who love Jesus by separating themselves from other
pastors/people who love Jesus over anything apart from blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit. Even in contexts of blasphemy, we are called to be the good
leaven and call people from sin through confession and repentance for
redemption. While there is a place for monasticism, that is a particular
call for some but not most. Get out your copy of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. Simply,
the rest of us are to put on the armor, pray/labor to be oaks of righteousness,
and wage war against the enemy and not retreat into navelgazing little cliques
of smug self-righteousness. Besides, why leave one stinking denomination
for another stinking denomination when you already know the stink of your own
and can pray and labor to be a deodorant for Jesus? Oh, Oh, Oh, you
twwwyyyed. Hey, pal, take a look at the cross and stop worshiping your
navel! Don't you remember what Jesus commanded: "If anyone would
come after Me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross, and, then,
follow Me!"? C'mon, stop rationalizing your defections and divisions
like...

2. John 3:19-21 -
Unless it's a pastoral/personal/corporate confidentiality like
counseling/leading a staff member or anybody else who's having an
affair or dipping into the collection or watching porn on church
computers or something from sin through confession and repentance for
redemption, there are very, very, very few "secrets" or
"around-the-corner-whispering-conversations" that are not intended to
conceal sin. Most people who tell me not to talk about something want me
to hide/accommodate sin. For the most part - and it's just common sense -
if you can't say it publicly, it shouldn't be said. It's like meetings
that excuse people so others can talk about 'em behind their backs! Evil!
Evil! Evil! Jesus is quite clear about living in the light to
distinguish righteousness from evil.

3. Matthew 6:24 -
We gotta stop talk/action/non-action by claiming to be caught in the middle. Ain't
no such thing for Christians. We're either for Him or against Him or
trying/praying to figure out if we're for Him or against Him. God is not
double-minded about righteousness; and if we really love Him, we obey
Him. Period. Jesus said that. Being caught in the middle is
the excuse of cowards, miscreants, and...infidels/wolves in sheep's clothing:
"The way to spiritual power and favor with God is to be willing to put
away the weak compromises and the tempting evils to which we are prone to
cling. There is no Christian victory or blessing if we refuse to turn
away from the things that God hates...Even if your wife loves it, turn
away...Even if your husband loves it, turn away...Even if it is something that
has come to be accepted by our whole generation, turn away...Every Christian
holds the key to his or her own spiritual attainment...if he or she refuses to
hate sin and evil and wrong, our churches might as well be turned into lodges
or clubs" (Tozer).

4. Matthew 23
(especially Peterson's paraphrase/translation) - Shepherds don't follow sheep
because shepherds are called to, uh, undershepherd
after the pattern of Jesus the Good Shepherd as attested in Holy
Scripture. Read Matthew 23 very closely and you'll start barfing about
what's become of pastors like me. We're so ornamental, superficial, and
traditional in substituting our posing religion about Jesus for an authentic
relationship with Jesus as personified by Jesus Himself and prescribed in Holy
Scripture. We need to spend less time reading books about the book and
spend more time reading the book. Usually, books about the book don't try
to explain the book as intended in its inspiration; but rather rationalize
attempts to depart from the book to satisfy, again, our navelgazing, let's say
fallen, instincts.

5. Joshua 1 and
John 13:34-35 - If we don't get that, one wonders how the anything but heaven
we ever got ordained or on a church roll.

There's a lot
more that happened last October; but that's a preface to what follows and why I
am more energized/enabled for life and ministry than ever before even including
5/8/77.

@#$%

There's an
increasing epidemic that's cross-denominational - the unchecked assault on
clergy and churches (or using the Biblical metaphor, undershepherds of the
Good Shepherd and sheep).

While no one is
pure and perfect in every way and everyone needs Jesus to save 'em - except, of
course, sarcastically, for those who assault clergy - we often forget
discipline in the church is with an eye to redemption. In other words, we
call all people to confession and repentance for redemption. We do not
shoot our wounded; or, uh, at least, we're not supposed to... We're
supposed to protect His undershepherds
and sheep from those darkly influenced in a Romans 16:17-20 and Titus 3:10-11
kinda way.

Anyway, a denominational
executive tantamount to a geographically located bishop recently wrote this to
constituents/colleagues: "I don't know how things are where you are
serving, but in the center of the country, it is a rocky season for
pastors. We have had several pastors with decades of experience come to a
precipitous end of a call...And for those who are still hanging on, it is a
rough row to hoe."

Her diagnosis:
"Why is it so rough out there? I think there are several
contributing factors. Most Presbyterians did not grow up in the
Presbyterian church...[I trust there are parallels in other franchises]...yet
many of our churches continue to imagine that they do not really need to teach
their new elders anything about Reformed Theology and the polity that arises
from it. We continue to act like they should just know it and pastors get
cross-ways with their sessions."

True.

Continuing,
"Second, with several of our congregations leaving us for other
affiliations, it seems to have created an atmosphere where any authority that
the presbytery might once have had is being diminished. We may go to a
church and say our rules say 'this' and they reply with an attitude of 'make
me.'"

O.K., but that's
more of a testimony to the spinelessness of clergy/presbyteries/conferences/bishops/whatevers
than the actual authority that can be exerted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they may
leave. So what? Is that any excuse for the butchering of...?
Are our ethics that
situational?

Continuing,
"Third, and most importantly, I think we have reached the tipping point in
many of our churches. The people who are in our sanctuaries on Sunday
morning look around and see that there are fewer and older people. They
remember all of the things that used to happen at church that have gone by the
wayside. They know in their guts that they need to change, but they do
not want to do so. Then the pastor gets up on Sunday morning and sits in
session meetings and tells them that they need to change. Again, they
don't want to. Instead of deciding that it is time to change themselves,
they are deciding that the easiest way to stop having to think about change is
to get rid of the person who is talking about change. So they fire
their..."

Sure.

Never underestimate
the control needs of people who long for the way things never were or maybe
were but are no more.

Never
underestimate the control needs of people whose relationship with Jesus is
coincidental at best.

Never
underestimate the control needs of people who really don't care what Jesus or
the Bible say if it collides with their fallen instincts.

Never
underestimate the control needs of people who will bite, bruise, beat, and
butcher if their control needs are frustrated.

Never underestimate
the cowardice of too many in the face of such bold control needs.

Yes, there is
more to it than the bishop said; but the bishop is pretty good at peeling the
onion that ultimately exposes...evil at the core of all of this meanness,
madness, and misery from the world that has now pounced upon clergy and
poisoned churches.

@#$%

Which gets me to
Henry and St. James.

Henry is a church
in my franchise (PCUSA) that my presbytery (local "governing" body of
churches in a geographical area), so far, has failed to hold accountable for
the emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and vocational rape of their most
recent pastor by a very few seizing control over the vast majority.

St. James is a
neighboring Roman Catholic Church in Belvidere, Illinois that has
a real bishop who, so far, has failed to confront a very few making
life miserable for the vast majority while dragging the priest's name
through the mud of fallen instincts.

Here's the
kicker.

In both cases, at
the eye of the hurricane is only a handful of...

Help 'em, Jesus,
because nobody else is!

In both cases,
everyone knows who...

And in both
cases, the priest and pastor are being hung out to...while the assaults
continue unabated.

Way to go,
brothers/sisters!

Talk about
gutlessness.

The reputations
of a priest and pastor - not to mention the scattering of the sheep - are being
ruined and their prospects for the future diminished if not destroyed because
neither "bishop" has the, uh, uh, uh, courage to esteem the undershepherds and call
the miscreants to confession and repentance for redemption; or, uh, apart from
confession and repentance, uh, excommunication/removal.

I'm trying to get
an audience with St. James' bishop.

I will ask some
tough questions of "us" at the next stated presbytery meeting.

I'd rather be
crucified for commission than damned for omission.

@#$%

Anybody remember
Niemoller ("They came for the...and I didn't speak up because I wasn't
a...Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up!')?

What's happening
in Henry and at St. James is much bigger than a pastor and a priest.

It's an Ephesians
6:10ff. thing.

It's even bigger
than that.

Our commissions
and omissions related to brothers/sisters being butchered in/under/by any
circumstance by anyone measure our relationship with Jesus.

Jesus said,
"As you do it or don't
do it for them, you do it or
don't do it for Me!"

Ain't no middle
ground.

No such thing as
an "innocent bystander" in the Kingdom.

We is or we ain't with Jesus when it
comes to our neighbors: "Do unto them as...As you do it...Love each other
just as much as I have...").

Those are not
just throwaway lines for some collect in a religious observance about Jesus.

Those are
commands from Jesus to distinguish authentics from posers.

If we just stand
by and let...

Are we that
spineless...selfish...unfaithful?

@#$%

It does not honor
our Lord to allow anyone's reputation, vocation, livelihood, and so on to be
tarnished, threatened, or terminated by identifiable miscreants and just...

I know.

I had a friend
who called from Detroit many years ago.

He said, "A
member of the church is saying things about me that are just not true.
Everybody knows it. But no one will do anything about it. I feel
like snakes are in my bed, in my head, in my..."

5 comments:

Jim
said...

Wow, this is pretty intense, though (sadly) hardly news to anybody who has been paying attention. Sounds like stormy weather at the next Presbytery meeting. And your work with the Administrative Commission drags you away from watching over the sheep you've been called to under-shepherd.

I think Presbytery Execs look at it this way, to paraphrase Caiaphas, "It is better for one pastor to get kicked to the curb, after all, there are plenty of pastors out there who can fill a pulpit, than for us to lose a congregation/members." Ironically, the PC(USA) continues lose congregations/members faster than the Cubs lose ballgames.

I can always count on you to make me think. I hate when that happens. Ha Ha I believe that people in our 2 Corps and at 1st presb. need to hear from the pulpit what God thinks of Commission and Omission. There are some real life examples as well as Biblical ones.

This Sunday I preached at both Corps about idols. Money? What else? Do you think that maybe the people that you are ranting about have caught up in the idol game?

A few presbyters sat in the balcony for the last ever stated presbytery meeting at Rockford's First Presbyterian Church.

One exclaimed, "Do you see what I see? The average age at this meeting must be 180!"

Response: "It just reflects what's not going on in most of our churches."

Despite the earnest and honest efforts of presbyters assigned to clean up the mess in a church recently renowned for the emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and vocational rape of a young pastor, no one seemed to care about what was happening to that pastor except for other young pastors who thanked the older pastor for, at least, asking if anything is being done to esteem him and enable his relocation.

The older pastor was not amused by the silence of geezers like him.

He also noted the guarded timidity of the younger pastors in thanking him; thinking they must be fearing...

Then, as he left, he met a woman from a neighboring church, notorious for being way left of Che and Betty, holding membership(s) in two mainline denominational churches and a Unitarian one to boot but still representing her "church" and voting at meetings without anyone blushing or daring to mention accountability, whose hatred was hardly concealed for the older pastor who approached her, took her hand, and frosted her with a kiss on the cheek.

Is that ironic or hypocritical on all accounts?

The young pastor who...is left to hang.

He may leave pastoral ministry and the denomination that birthed him.

The woman who hates everyone who still holds to Biblical/Christocentric values continues to poison the assembly.

Since I have been effectively vocation-less for going on four year now, there is little risk in forwarding. But, then, no longer being part of that franchise, well, there's no one to forward it to anyway.

Q: What is the difference between the ecclesiastical leadership and membership of the PC(USA) (and pretty much any mainline/now sideline denomination) and passengers on the Titanic?A: The passengers on the Titanic knew when they were going down for good.